Spring arm and body support

Abstract

A spring arm (1) for a camera body support is provided with a parallelogram guide (3, 5) which is made up of two opposing legs (10, 11) disposed parallel to one another and two likewise opposing connecting elements (12, 13) that connect the respective ends of the legs (10, 11) with one another, and an energy storage mechanism (15), which is supported on two pivot points (17, 19) on the parallelogram guide (3, 5), in order to compensate a load acting on the parallelogram guide (3, 5). At least one (19) of these pivot points (17, 19) is adjustable in relation to the parallelogram guide (3, 5) such that both the energy storage mechanism's (15) pretension and also its action of force direction change.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD[0001]The present invention relates to a body support having a spring arm according to the preamble of claim 1.PRIOR ART[0002]Body supports for cameras with a spring arm have inherently been known since the mid 70s and have been described for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,017,168, 4,156,512, 4,208,028 and 4,394,075 as well as U.S. Pat. No. 6,030,130. The spring arm of the body support is fixed on one of its ends to the cameraman's body by way of a carrying strap, and the camera is attached on the other end of the spring arm either simply by way of a camera sled or also by way of a pendulum system (gimbal). The camera's weight is supported on the cameraman's body by means of the body support. This makes guiding the camera considerably easier by comparison with a situation where the cameraman has to hold the whole weight of the camera in his hands.[0003]In this regard the camera's movement is essentially decoupled from the cameraman's movement. Thus the cameraman can shoo...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention relates to a body support with a spring arm for cameras that allows the cameraman to easily hold and guide the camera in various positions without transferring the weight of the camera to their body. The spring arm acts as an energy storage mechanism that compensates for the weight of the camera, but the force exerted by the spring arm may not always be in the same direction as the camera's movement. The invention solves this problem by providing a body support with a spring arm that allows the cameraman to adjust the force direction of the energy storage mechanism to match the camera's movement. This ensures that the energy storage mechanism always compensates for the weight of the camera, regardless of the position of the spring arm. The invention also allows for the adjustability of the pivot points of the energy storage mechanism to optimize the kinematics of the parallelogram."

Problems solved by technology

The cameraman has to absorb this differential force, which leads of course to impairment of the camera's guidance: often the spring arm's optimum performance is only generated in the horizontal position whilst in its very upwardly deflected position the spring arm only applies an insufficient force.

An extreme progression in the spring arm's lower movement range is also problematic.

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